


A Righteous Mind

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dubious Consent, Harry tries to do the right thing, M/M, Niall & Louis are brothers, Past Abuse, Rape/Non-con Elements, Zayn is ten years Niall's senior, and Liam doesn't even feature until the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 01:53:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall is sick but nobody knows, not when Zayn confines him to their bedroom and deadlocks him away from the world. This isn’t a love story; it’s where Niall can barely remember himself and Zayn covets him with a dark passion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Righteous Mind

\---

_“Are you going to leave?”_

_“No, Ni, I’m going to help you get better.”_

\---

The first time it happens Niall takes it silently and when it’s all over he curls within himself, fingers splayed harshly against the marble flooring. He covers his chest with one hand and smiles, because no one can hurt him, not when his heart is protected and safe. 

His breaths escape in ragged puffs, uneven because he’s almost forgetting to at least _breathe_. His arm is bent strangely beside him but it doesn’t hurt twice as much as the heavy burden in his chest. A hearts a heavy burden though, he decides, but he doesn’t remember it being so hollow as well. It was supposed to be a good day. He’d cleaned the house two times over, and he spits out blood with a cry at how his pristine tiled floor is spotted with red. It hurts but he hasn’t the strength to sit up and really check out what’s wrong with his arm, or put ice on his purpling cheek. 

_'Ni, listen to me. Never stay with a man or woman who raises a finger against you. Never take the abuse you are given, you are undeserving of it.'_

Niall smiles against the floor where his cheek is pressed flush against. _‘Oh, Zayn,’_ he thinks. _‘You’ve changed.’_

\---

Niall isn’t hospitalised, no, he hates the smell of a clinic because he’s been there times too many in his earlier years to enter without fear.

You see his brother Louis' is small in stature, just like him, but he’s still strong, tattooed and a fierce bloke, even more so when he’s surrounded by his posse of biker friends. Yet for all his tough, Louis not always there to protect his studious younger brother Niall. 

He doesn’t grasp the real reason Niall so often stays back for the extra tutoring he doesn’t need and spends weeks in afternoon detention. Louis doesn’t know the way his brother’s been debauched by his very own teacher, or why he loses a fifth of his body weight in a month and grows grey clouds beneath his eyes. He doesn’t know they rain in suffered silence. He doesn’t know until he actually walks in on it, heart set ablaze as he watches the dirty old man rut into his brother who’s gagged and crying against the teacher’s desk. The teacher is muttering filthy, hideous things into Niall’s ear and Louis _sees red_. 

The sound of skin slapping against skin, the musky scent of sex and the way his brother had wept still haunts him to the day.

And Louis watches Niall stay hospitalised for an entire year because he refuses to speak and goes mute after the incident. Their parents sob themselves sick while Louis feels like he’s failed his brother beyond comprehension. Niall returns but he never finishes high school, not when he spends far too many days taking forever in the bathroom, staring morosely at his own reflection. 

So Louis’ sceptical to introduce Zayn to him, because Zayn’s ten years Niall’s senior and he’s seen the way he fills his sketchbooks with Niall’s fading eyes, his face and his dead smile. He’s so scared his brother’s going to get hurt again on his account. But Niall and Zayn fall so head over heels in love that Niall even gains back his voice and Louis can’t help but be grateful. Zayn treats Niall like he’s the reason the sun rises every morning, and well, how often do you find someone like that?

 _‘Look at me now, brother,’_ Niall thinks with a dazed smile. _‘I’m bruised and broken, but I’m glad I’m no longer your burden to bear.’_

Instead Zayn bandages him up, pressing sweet open-mouthed kisses against his bruises, and Niall lies quiet in his arms, eyes glassed over.

There’s no apology, no. 

The days where Zayn is remorseful the morning after are long gone, and they’ve left a charred and ashen road of destruction it its wake, one that Niall has been bound to walk on. Niall’s really tired and he can feel his weariness in his bones. Zayn leaves and locks the bedroom door fast from the outside, clicking all five locks before slamming the front door behind him. And Niall knows he’s meant to clean the window railings today, he knows. But for some odd reason he spends the day beside the telephone, listening to all the frantic messages Louis has left, and it’s soothing. And though Niall’s tired beyond belief he just can’t fall asleep. 

_‘Hey Niall, it’s Louis. Please, if you get this call me back as soon as possible!’_  
-beep-

 _‘Niall I’m terrified, why aren’t you calling back? I’m so sorry for yesterday, I didn’t think he’d react like that, it was only dinner! I should have told him or invited him, I’m so fucking sorry, just don’t ignore me. Call me so I know you’re all right.’_  
-beep-

 _‘Niii, this is Harry I don’t know what happened yesterday but you’ve got Louis absolutely frazzled. Something about you and Zayn having a fight, I have no clue. Call him, he’s worrying himself sick.’_  
-beep-

When Zayn gets home and finds him on their bed, the railings still caked with dirt and Niall replaying Louis’ messages like a mantra, he feels his insides boil and burn with something poisonous. Zayn doesn’t want to name it because he’s afraid of the monster he’ll uncover within himself. He feels the hairs on his neck stand on end because he’s told Niall countlessly, a million times not to touch the fucking telephone. Why can’t he listen or take in a goddamned word of what Zayn is trying to tell him? 

“Niall,” he starts calmly. “You were meant to do the railings. Remember that list I gave you? I gave it to you just this morning, where did you put it?”

Niall looks borderline of tears as Louis’ voice is cut off abruptly as Zayn tears the line from the telephone, slamming the entire contraption against the opposite wall. Niall’s lost for words and he backs up against the bedpost, hands in every pocket he can find. 

“I don’t know, Zayn, I don’t know where I put it! I’m sorry, but I just don’t remember!”

Zayn growls because he’s sick and tired of Niall always feigning forgetfulness, and coming up with stupid excuses. There are lists all up around the house but Niall never just fucking listens and does what he’s told. He fists the silk white shirt Niall’s wearing, shaking the blonde in the process. 

“Do you see this, Niall?” he rings the silk and forces Niall to face the fine imported telephone that’s shattered. “Do you see all of this? This is MY house, I pay the bills and you don’t get shit or a say in any of it! You don’t work, you don’t earn and you didn’t even fucking finish high school, but I did, Niall! I did! So don’t you dare think you can live here for free, not when I pay for your survival!” 

Zayn’s breath comes out in puffs and his heart stutters because he hears himself as an echo of another man’s voice, only this voice is deeper, slurred with drugs and it sounds an awful lot like his wretched father.

_'You don’t pay the bills! I pay to raise you so you fucking shut up or your sisters will get it! Your mother doesn’t work, and she didn’t even finish university! She’s on MY property, you all are and you’ll abide by my rules!'_

“Please, Zayn! I forgot and I can’t remember anything! Why am I here, where’s my mum, why are you yelling at me?”

Why does he sound like a beaten animal? Just like his mother has as Zayn clutched a burning jaw, his sisters cowering behind him.

_'Please, don’t touch them! He’s your son! Why are you doing this?_

Niall attempts to rest his fingers against Zayn’s cheek and that blows his fuse as he drags Niall to the floor and backhands him right across the face. 

\---

Niall talks in his sleep, when his skin is mottled black and blue, and he’s clinging onto his captor. And Zayn will stay awake and listen, jaw tight because there’s this painful knot in his stomach as a voice in his head plagues him. 

_(‘Just like your father, you dirty little boy. You’ve trapped him, with your twisted imagination. You could never run from yourself, little boy, and now neither can he…’)_

He knows he has a problem and it’s sick, twisted and far from what they’d once had when they fell in love. His therapist tells him bluntly: 

“You saw what your father did to your mother, to your sisters, when he was inebriated, or even when he was sober. You may have vowed to be different but that’s what you saw, and it became your idea of the only way to solve a problem. We learn from those around us, Zayn, whether we realise it or not. I don’t think…you are not emotionally fit to pursue a relationship right now, do you understand? Let him go, Zayn, I know you have the heart to do it.”

Zayn’s heart is big but it’s half occupied by dark anger and obsession that there’s not much more to spare for the thought of others. 

He’s brimming with pent up rage and poor Niall’s taken the brunt of it, carried Zayn’s burden upon his frail shoulders for the past two months. Their relationship is just barely legal, something Louis has always been cynical about, and Zayn acknowledges in disgust that he’s perverting a child who’s unwell in the head. Zayn knows he must let Niall go, but he’s a selfish, selfish man and he must hide Niall’s independence for his own comfort. Niall’s feverishly mumbling into Zayn’s neck and that arm of his still hasn’t healed. 

Zayn knows he needs a doctor, but he’s sick and the unnatural angle of Niall’s bone is just another sign that he’s _Zayn’s_ and no one else’s.

\---

It’s been four weeks but Niall’s mental condition only worsens, and Zayn has taken to locking him inside their room everyday now, just for safety precautions. 

He forgets to feed himself, eat or take his baths and meds. Often he forgets his own name, asks for his mother and why he’s here. 

Zayn can hardly stay at work without worrying that Niall will toss his frail broken body over their ten-storey balcony, and that he’ll lose the only stability in his life now. Yes, that’s what Niall represents; stability. And Zayn finds comfort in that Niall would never run from him. The voice in his head taunts _(‘ **Would** never run, or **could?’** )_ him to no end and Zayn loses countless nights in bed battling his own conscience. And Zayn’s blood runs cold the day Niall loses his voice again, but Zayn’s an unwell man and tries to beat him into speech. Niall makes not a sound. 

He’s so preoccupied with himself and coveting Niall that he forgets that their friends are human beings, and basic instinct tells them something wrong when they haven’t seen or heard from Niall in weeks. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise when he’s founded out. 

\---

He comes home one day and just barely nudges off his shoes when a frighteningly strong hand grabs him by the neck and slams him against the wall. Once, twice and three times until Zayn’s completely disorientated and the back of his head is on fire. 

His blurry vision clears slightly to see Louis’ oceanic eyes morphed into a dangerous navy, teeth bared in a snarl. His handsome face is livid, and Zayn’s seen this look before, only Niall was eleven and their teacher for forty-one. Zayn closes his eyes in acceptance because he’s covered his tracks, but Louis’ bound to check on his brother, especially when Niall hasn’t spoken to him for weeks. 

“You fucking _bastard_ ,” Louis hisses, before striking Zayn in the jaw and sending him to the floor. “I trusted you! He’s not even well and I placed all my faith in you! Fucking sick-minded.”

And Zayn’s getting his stomach caved in by Louis’ ferocious kicks, yet he doesn’t even bother to defend himself because he deserves this. He’s almost forgotten Louis’ sheer strength. Zayn recollects back to their younger and more reckless days when he’d rode beside Louis and they raced on motorcycles with their gang to the darker parts of town, in search of some low-life to reduce to a slab of meat. He smiles vaguely against the blood spewing out of his mouth as he recalls Louis knocking a man’s front teeth out clean. Zayn’s in blinding pain by the time Louis drags him out from the front corridor and into the living room.  
The outraged young man hauls him up by his dark hair, forcing him to face the two on the couch.

Niall’s out of their bedroom (how many weeks has it been?) and shaking terribly in Harry’s arms, yet he panics at the sight of Zayn’s bloody face, mouth open in silent protest as he attempts to reach out for him. His arms are blue and green, and his broken arm has swollen at the joint. His blonde hair (sunlight, it used to be) is ashen. 

“What the fuck have you done to him? Why the fuck isn’t he speaking?” Louis yells into Zayn’s ear. Zayn looks down, trying to avoid the crumbling mess of a boy on the couch. 

_‘I’ve ruined him,’_ Zayn thinks to himself. _‘He’s still in the twisted mindset that he loves me, look at him.’_

“Look at him, you fucking savage! He’s _sixteen_ and look at what you’ve done to him!” Louis’ voice breaks. 

“I’ve wrecked him!” Zayn bellows, and some strange fit takes over his mind because he then laughs, a hoarse and bloody laugh that has crimson spilling over his lips. “I’ve been wrecking him for the past months and you fools never saw it. I’ve debased him beyond belief, but you’ve seen this before, Louis. You remember Niall in 7th grade? You remember his teacher, Louis?”

And Louis’ face contorts into boundless anger and he smashes Zayn to the floor. Harry grabs Louis from behind, shouting at him (‘You fool, don’t kill him!’) and Zayn sees Niall fall into his view, dull blue eyes filled with sadness as he gently touches Zayn’s face with anxious fingertips. And Zayn’s in shock because there’s something wet falling on his face and he realises Niall’s crying, not for himself but for Zayn. He’s not making a sound (will he ever again?) and shakes with silent tears, and Zayn realises what a sadistic brute he’s turned into. 

“I’m sorry, Niall. I’m a bad, _bad_ man and I’ve ruined you,” Zayn croaks, as Niall shakes his head. “But I love you too, and it breaks me.”

But Zayn doesn’t get a chance to speak any further because Niall is scooped up by his brother, who shouts something about hospitals and ambulances. Before he leaves he doesn’t hesitate to spit on Zayn’s face from at where he’s lying on the floor, and delivers a final blow to his chest to which Harry reprimands him. 

“You’re never going to touch my brother again, Malik. But don’t you dare think this is the last you’ll see of me.” And with that he slams the door closed behind him. 

Zayn lies on the floor feeling hopelessly abandoned, and doesn’t resist when Harry gently lifts his torso so he can get into a sitting position against the sofa. Harry sits opposite from him, and it’s strange to see those dimples disappear and his red lips form a hard line. 

“The police are going to get here any minute,” Harry says gently, but firmly.

“I figured.”

“I’ve seen your righteous mind, Zayn, though you’ve just lost it somewhere along the way. No matter what happens, don’t give up on yourself. You’re still a good man at heart.”

“I’m a _wretched_ man,” Zayn spits. “I knew, Harry, for three months. Three months ago it started, Harry. and it wouldn’t stop. We had an argument, I scared him and suddenly he wasn’t himself any longer. They diagnosed him with dissociative amnesia, and it’s spiralled down since. I got so angry all the time because why could he remember? Why wasn’t he sleeping? Why did he lose all perception of himself so suddenly? And the angrier I got the more like an animal I treated him. I’m my father’s son, Harry. There was no righteous mind to begin with.”

\---

Zayn is sentenced ten years, a span lessened due to his own deteriorating mental health and the pity of a judge who watches Niall dissolve into silent tears as Zayn’s charged guilty. Louis is bitter, and doesn’t look at him once as they lead him away by cuffs. Ten years is a long time, and he’ll spend it all alone. 

Not long enough, in Zayn’s opinion.

\--- 

He’s out now, thirty-six and he’s sitting all alone at on a park bench, a sketchbook in his lap and a cigarette dangling between his lips. He’s content. 

It gets lonely sometimes, he supposes, but Zayn realises people like him are probably destined to live in solitude. 

And Zayn’s committed himself to an isolated life, though not a single person has ever lit the fire in his furnace as Niall has, and he doubts he’ll find a similarly kind, beautiful soul like Niall’s again. Often it keeps him up at night, because Niall’s twenty-six now and he wonders where he is and whether Zayn often plays a figure in his thought as Niall does his. Zayn hasn’t visited Niall’s apartment but he doubts he still lives there. Zayn’s certain Louis is taking all precautions now that he’s a free man again. 

He’s idly drawing the outline of a picnicking couple when he spots someone and his pencil slides all the way down across his page and clatters onto the concrete. It’s him. He’s in an aquamarine t-shirt, with these large-frame glasses perched on his nose and blonde hair catching the light. 

He’s laughing, head thrown back in that way Zayn’s missed. 

He carries a huge psychology textbook in his arms, accompanied by music score-sheets and Zayn smiles because he realises Niall’s gone to university and he’s going to make something truly great of himself. Beside him walks a tall, broad-shoulder young man whose kind brown eyes watch Niall’s face with something bordering upon love. He’s carrying Niall’s shoulder bag and the other half of his books in his hands, and Zayn can see something growing there, something pure that he’s glad Niall has finally found. 

He pulls his beanie over his face and hides behind his sketchbook as Niall passes.

“My god, Liam, you should have seen it! Louis almost cried in relief, and have you any idea how many times Louis has mock-proposed to me? I deserve a medal or something…” This ‘Liam’ laughs and hesitantly rests his hand at the small of Niall’s back, ever so softly, as if he can’t believe he’s even allowed to do so. The two pass Zayn by without a second glance. 

When they’re a safe distance away Zayn lowers his book back down into his lap and stares after them at Niall’s back. 

And then he raises a hand and waves to Niall’s figure that grows ever smaller, and sits content because this is his own personal victory, and the hole at the end of the tunnel is looking brighter already. 

\---


End file.
